Enid Blyton and her Enchantment with Dorset Synopsis Many will recall in childhood, defying their parents by reading by torchlight at night-time under the bedclothes. I myself, recall doing this both at home and at boarding school, where all too often the object of my delight were Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous...
Hitler: Dictator or Puppet
Hitler: Synopsis Adolf Hitler has been variously described as a ‘madman’; a ‘lunatic’; a ‘monster’; a ‘homicidal maniac’ etcetera, but this in no way explains the essence of the man who was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. His appearance was fairly unremarkable. But when he...
A Brummie Boy goes to War
A Brummie Boy Goes To War Synopsis Thomas Waldin, an apprentice silversmith from Birmingham (and grandfather of the author), was blinded at Ypres in World War I. Yet, when all seemed lost, Sir Arthur Pearson and St Dunstan’s came to his aid. This is his story. Thomas Waldin, a 19-year-old...
Beatrix Potter: Her Inner World
Beatrix Potter: Synopsis Even from a very young age when she lived in London, Beatrix Potter was interested in animals. In fact, she kept a collection of them in her bedroom! In her books, such as ‘The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin’, which she illustrated herself, she treated the little animals...
Thomas Hardy at Max Gate: The Latter Years
Thomas Hardy at Max Gate: Synopsis ‘Max Gate’ is a large house on the outskirts Dorchester which Dorset poet and novelist Thomas Hardy designed himself, and being an intensely private person, he surrounded it with a thick screen of trees. In this house, Hardy continued to write his novels including...
Thomas Hardy: Bockhampton and Beyond
Thomas Hardy: Synopsis Devotees of Thomas Hardy, not only in his native county of Dorset but worldwide, are fortunate in that the cottage in which he was born and grew up still exists, and is lovingly maintained by the National Trust.‘Hardy’s Cottage’ is set in an idyllic landscape of forest...
Making Sense of Marilyn
Making Sense of Synopsis The face of Marilyn Monroe was, in her lifetime, and remains today, arguably the most recognisable on the planet. But what I remember most about her from her films and from film clips is her charm, and that wonderful smile that lit up the scene wherever...